What's Really Causing Childhood Obesity?

An alarming one-third of American children are overweight or obese. It's a rate that's climbed three times as high as it was even a generation ago, and the hunt is on to identify the culprit and root it out.

But wait: Apparently the offending party has been nabbed. The prestigious American Academy of Pediatrics, a professional organization of 65,000 physicians, has just announced its official recommendations for combating childhood obesity: Ban "fast food" commercials on television. The Academy, citing one study, claims that this move alone would reduce the number of obese and overweight kids by almost 20%.

Really?

Even the AAP acknowledges that the majority of kids eat most of their meals at home, not at "fast food" establishments. In truth, fast food makes up only about 17% of most adolescents' total caloric intake. Kids are eating too much, but most of what they eat isn't fast food.

Nevertheless, the good doctors are pinning the blame for childhood obesity on what they call junk food (a term they use synonymously with "fast food"), and the ads that promote it.

But the Academy never defines junk food. Is it food high in fat--like an avocado? Or foods high in sugar--like orange juice? Is the purpose of banning certain food advertisements to discourage any consumption of the food at all? How can we ban "junk food" ads when the term is not defined? How can you declare a food is "junk" without taking into account the pattern of use? Any food can make you fat if you eat enough of it.

It is a simple fact that obesity is caused by ingesting more calories than you burn. It does not matter if those calories come from a
McDonald's
cheeseburger or from a homemade meal. Focusing on "junk food" (whatever that is) is missing the broad picture that would include the full spectrum of calories we consume daily--from all sources. Banning ads for "junk food" will do absolutely nothing to reduce childhood obesity. (A better idea--as long as we're talking about bans--might be to turn off a child's TV in the first place and get her moving outside.)

We deserve better from the Academy of Pediatrics. They should be recommending that what all of us, children and adults alike, should be eating is: less.

Elizabeth Whelan is the president of the American Council on Science and Health.